Readdle has released an updated version of its PDF Expert software for Mac, adding several new features that enhance editing options, increase search capabilities and strengthen security. PDF Expert 2 allows users to edit text and images in any PDF, making fixing typos or resizing logos and graphs a much more streamlined process. The software can also add links to text and photos, making any component within the PDF clickable and interactive. An editable table of contents makes navigating through a large file much faster using hotkeys, and a new redact feature lets users search for and remove sensitive information before sending out important documents. PDFs can also be password-protected to keep prying eyes away from private data.

With macOS Sierra looming on the horizon — and already in public beta — it’s time for a new version of Parallels’ venerable Windows emulator for Macs. Optimized for macOS Sierra, Parallels Desktop 12 ($80) boosts performance for shared folders, and suspend, resume, and snapshot operations. Other new features include the ability to quickly capture Facebook or Vimeo videos, a distraction-free presentation mode for both Mac and Windows sessions, hiding desktop icons, keeping the screen awake, seamless Office 365 integration, Windows Server 2016 support, and more. Users also get 500GB of free online cloud backup storage from Acronis for one year.

Unless you’re somebody who’s been blessed with eidetic memory, even the best of us could use some help from time to time remembering snippets of information. This is where Purrfect Memory ($3) by Top Storey comes into play. This handy little app sits up in your Mac’s menu bar, prompting you to fill in the blanks on any phrase, list, or other set of words you want to remember, adding more and more blanks with each iteration until you’re ready to fill in the whole phrase or list by memory.

Although Apple has made some very nice improvements to its built-in Calendar app in macOS over the years, Apple’s core app remains focused on simplicity and easy of use, lacking the sophistication that many power users are looking for in a calendar app. Fortunately, if you’re somebody with a busy lifestyle who is looking for more from your macOS Calendar app, BusyMac has you covered with BusyCal 3 ($50). This new version of the popular calendar app brings a collection of great new features, including things that were previously the exclusive domain of Apple’s own Calendar app, such as support for travel times. BusyCal 3 continues to allow you to customize your calendar view with everything from font styles and colors to time formats, number of days or weeks shown, and more.

Cindori’s Command Center ($10) provides some handy shortcut options for those looking to streamline their Mac user experience. Moving the mouse to the edge of the screen with the app running activates the control panel without clicking or exiting another active app. The control display provides one-click access to many commonly used Mac features, including toggles for managing Wifi and Bluetooth connectivity, disabling notifications and turning on Night Mode. A streamlined music controller integrates with iTunes (and soon with Spotify) to allow users to control their music without switching between apps.

Aptonic’s Dropzone 3 ($10) is a pretty handy tool if you’re a Mac power-user who is constantly dragging and dropping files around your Mac and uploading things to online social media and sharing services. The app sits up in your menu bar and pops up with a drop target each time you pick up a file and move it somewhere, making it super easy to copy and move files into folders or applications, or upload and share them to services like Twitter, Facebook, or your own FTP server. Dropzone 3 also adds a new Drop Bar feature that lets you stack up files for later by dropping them on the Drop Zone target where they’ll stay until you either drop them into a Dropzone action, into a Finder folder, or into another app.

It’s pretty much inevitable in this digital age that you’ll eventually find your Mac cluttered up with duplicate photos, documents, and other files that have just somehow become misfiled in different directories, exported for sharing, and more. Making sense of all of this can be a challenge, but fortunately there’s MacPaw’s Gemini 2 ($20), an intelligent duplicate finder that can help you recover a ton of space on your Mac by ferreting out duplicate — and even similar — files, and smartly choosing which ones to keep and which to throw away. Gemini 2 can quickly scan through your Mac’s home folder, shared folders, even external hard drives, or even network shares to track down identical files that you’ve left laying around.

Apple has released Logic Pro X 10.2.3 ($200), an update to its flagship studio recording app, adding a handful of interesting new features. Most notably, the update adds over 300 new Chinese instrument Apple Loops — likely the same set that came to GarageBand a few weeks ago — along with three new traditional Chinese instrument patches for pipa, erhu, and percussion.

Pixelmator Team’s Pixelmator ($30) has become a go-to app when it comes to editing photos — it’s significantly cheaper than the 800 lb. gorilla that is Photoshop, and delivers most of the functionality that the typical user would need. Further, Pixelmator Team keeps enhancing it, and version 3.5 adds smarter selection tools and deeper integration with the OS X Photos app. The Quick Selection Tool and Magnetic Selection Tool have both been improved to make it easier to make detailed and precise selections, and a new Retouch Extension for Photos lets you take advantage of seriously advanced retouching tools without having to leave the Photos app.

MacPhun has released a nice update to its popular Aurora HDR Pro app, designed to give Mac users the ability to easily turn their digital photos into impressive high dynamic range images. With the latest version, Aurora HDR Pro ($100) now includes an extension for the OS X Photos app, allowing you to seamlessly take advantage of the app’s capabilities to round-trip photos without leaving the app, and even sync favorite presets with the main app. Editing tools and presets have been enhanced for various photography styles and settings, making it really easy to instantly transform photos for various settings without having to fuss with detailed settings. Though users who like to tweak and experiment with detailed adjustments can still do so with the broad range of editing tools available, allowing you to start out with a preset to get the general look you’re seeking and then adjust from there.

On the heels of last month’s Airmail for iOS update, Bloop has now released Airmail 3.0 for the Mac ($10), bringing it closer to feature parity with the iOS version, with a whole collection of improvements. If you like to heavily configure and customize your email experience or are a power user that likes to integrate your email with a ton of third-party apps, then Airmail is definitely the email app for you, and the new features in version 3 add many of the little things missing from the prior version, making the experience even better.

Whether you’re a professional graphic designer or somebody who simply dabbles in building web sites or brochures, chances are there’s been a time when you’ve wanted to create really impressive page headings or other text elements. If so, you’ll want to take a closer look at Belight Software’s Art Text 3 ($50), a totally redesigned update to the company’s graphic design app for creating word art, logos, 3D text designs, and more. It’s a great tool whether you’re simply looking to design graphical buttons and headers for your website or publish newsletters and flyers. The update also features a new embedded 3D modeling engine that helps you create real 3D graphics and illustrations, allowing you to convert any text, symbol. or pictogram to 3D with realistic results, along with a huge selection of styles, materials, mask presets, tileable textures, geometry transformation tools, and more.

We’ve been fans of Alfred for a few years now — it’s a great tool for searching through your Mac, launching apps, and performing workflows, all without taking your keys from the keyboard, and even with Apple’s recent Spotlight improvements, Alfred still goes the extra mile. So needless to say we’re thrilled to see the launch of Alfred 3 (free), bringing a whole list of cool enhancements to an already indispensable tool. The update adds some significant flexibility to building workflows, a new multimedia clipboard, snippet expansion, improved theme editing, and more. Best of all, it’s still available for free, although the Powerpack upgrade is still available for £17 (around $25) for those who are looking for more advanced features; users who bought the single or family licensed Powerpack for Alfred 2 get a discounted upgrade, of course, while users with a “Mega Supporter” license get it for free.

If your home network is getting so complex that you need an app to monitor it all, Spot Maps ($34) from Equinux could be the solution to help streamline things. Spot Maps scans your network for active computers, smartphones, tablets and an array of smart home devices, including support for Philips Hue, Apple HomeKit, Homeatic and Nest Cam. Once discovered, devices can be positioned with an easy drag-and-drop interface to create a custom map of your network. In Live Mode, the map determines the status of devices, displaying information about which ones are active and able to issue a notification if devices go offline. You can’t control your smart home devices from your map, but it will tell you which devices are online and which aren’t at a glance.

Apple subsidiary FileMaker, Inc. has beefed up its custom app software substantially in FileMaker 15 ($329), introducing new tools to streamline the app creation process, and to help users who want to get more out of their iPhone. Red highlighted text now identifies problem areas in Script Workspace and a multiple undo feature allows for instant recovery of scripting work. The top call statistics-logging feature now diagnoses slowdowns separately from other operations, so developers can continue to use their apps at the same time. Simple licensing options provide ways for teams of five or more to gain access to the FileMaker Server and share information in real time.